Some
random thoughts during the first few hours after the director of the FBI was
summarily fired by the President of the United States.

-When
President Trump fires James Comey who is conducting a counter-intelligence
investigation into the president’s possible collusion with the Russian effort to
interfere in the 2016 presidential election, he bears out my greatest fears - he
is a president demonstrably authoritarian, amoral and
anti-democratic.

-Trump’s
effort to justify this action by getting the Attorney General and his new deputy
to claim it’s because of Comey’s handling of Hillary Clinton’s e-mails last year
is pathetic and preposterous.

-I
am not a big fan of Comey but he was independent and did not deserve to be so
shabbily treated.

-Senator
Patrick Leahy (D-VT) says Trump is “Nixonian.” Indeed, this incident recalls the
Saturday Night Massacre in1973 when Nixon fired both his Attorney General and
then his Deputy when they refused to fire Archibald Cox who was conducting the
investigation into Nixon’s complicity in the Watergate cover-up. Nixon wanted
the investigation quashed but neither the people nor the Congress would allow
that to happen- and Nixon was ultimately forced to resign in the face of
impeachment.

-I
have no doubt that the reason behind Comey’s firing is that Trump wants to quash
the FBI's investigation into Russian meddling in the presidential election with
the possible collusion of the Trump administration. Firing Comey is a clear sign
of a cover-up. Will the people, the news media and the Congress allow that to
happen? I hope not but it’s too soon to know.

Meantime
there is an important story to tell about an American patriot also victimized by
Trump’s effort to eliminate anyone he sees as a threat.

Former
acting Attorney General Sally Yates, testified this past week before a Senate
Judiciary sub-committee to explain why she made an urgent visit to the White
House in late January to discuss the activities of General Michael Flynn who had
just become National Security advisor. At issue was what Flynn actually said to
Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislack.

As
we know, Flynn had told Vice President Mike Pense, who recounted on CBS’ Face
the Nation, that Flynn had not discussed American sanctions when he talked to
the Russians, at the very time President Barack Obama was imposing new sanctions
on Russia and expelling some Russian spies. But the NSA routinely bugs the
Russian embassy in Washington and Ms. Yates, as acting Attorney General knew
from intelligence agency transcripts that Flynn was lying. He had discussed
sanctions. Precisely what was discussed remains classified but we do know
President Vladimir Putin did not retaliate against American diplomats in Moscow
– and that was unusual. It has been widely speculated that Flynn told the
Russian’s that once Trump was inaugurated things will be different, but there is
as yet, no information in the public domain to support
this.

According
to Ms. Yates’ testimony, White House Legal Counsel Donald McGahn asked her why
she cared about who is lying to whom in the White House, This was part of her
response.

“…
you have a very sensitive position like National Security advisor and you don’t
want that person to be in a position where the Russian’s have leverage over
them.” (In other words, Flynn could be blackmailed by the Russians for being
caught lying about something they could prove was a lie.)

Yates
went on “But I will also say that another motivating factor is we felt like the
vice president was entitled to know that the information he had been given and
was relaying to the American public, wasn’t true.”

Sally
Yates was cool, sharp and totally credible for an entire afternoon of often
hostile grilling by Republican senators who are buying Trump’s view that the
so-called Russian scandal is a hoax and the only crimes that have been committed
are by those who leaked classified materials which make him look
bad.

To
this end, Senator Chuck Grassley(R-IA) dutifully followed a Trump tweet
suggestion sent out the morning of the hearing, that Ms. Yates be asked under
oath if she or anyone she knew had leaked the information to the Washington Post
which contained the first public account of her visit to the White House to
deliver the warnings about Flynn. She might have been resentful of the question.
She simply said “No.”

While
the White House would have us believe that Yates was an Obama mole in the
D.O.J., in fact she is a nearly thirty- year career prosecutor who got her first
break from a conservative Georgia senator. She moved up in the ranks under both
Republican and Democratic administrations because she was apolitical and was
very good at her job. That was evident as she skillfully fended off her critics,
such as Senator John Cronyn (R-Tex). He lamented that while he had once voted to
confirm her as assistant Attorney General, “I find it enormously disappointing
that you somehow vetoed the decision of the Office of Legal Counsel with regard
to the lawfulness of the president’s order. (Trump’s first Muslim Ban executive
order, which Yates decided as acting Attorney General the D.O.Jwould not defend in
Court.)

Yates
well remembered her earlier confirmation and then reminded the senator, “You
specifically asked me at that hearing that if the president asked me to do
something that was unlawful or unconstitutional…..would I say no? That’s what I
said I would do and that’s what I did.”

Several
courts which ruled on Trump’s first Muslim ban executive order agreed with her.
Nevertheless she was fired for her action. However given what happened to Comey,
it now seems plausible she was fired to keep her quiet about the Flynn case,

In
any event, because she was terminated, one issue former Acting Attorney General
Sally Yates could not explain is why, in spite of what she told the White House
about Flynn, eighteen days transpired before he got the axe. And that only
happened because of the Washington Post story about Yates' secret White House
visits, evidently based on a national security leak. It’s hard
not to wonder that if there had been no such leak, we might still have General
Michael Flynn as National Security Adviser.